Nex Machina (PC, PS4)

Thought we ought to get this started. New twin-stick shooter from the mighty Finnish wizards Housemarque in collaboration with their patron saint - and the genre inventor - Eugene Jarvis. Animations and environments look terrific, lots of swooshy pyrotechnics, and it runs super smooth regardless of screen mayhem. Excellent sound effects and synth soundtrack, with finest game over ditty ever. It's simple stuff - basically you run around laying waste to robo-hordes with a dash to get you out of trouble while saving humans to keep the multiplier going - but still majestic. Hidden routes and other secrets reward a bit of exploration, but clearly designed for hi-score replay above anything else. Five levels, multiple difficulties, score-attack mode for individual levels, inventive bullet-hell style boss battles. Almost as good an update on the Robotron formula as Minotron: 2112.

This is a great game. You have to max out power and keep the multiplier going for great scores. I find It great fun and addictive. Some of the high scores are unreal, but I improve every time so maybe one day...

Tough game this. So far I've only beaten it on easy, and that with coop help from my son. It needs some patching, to be honest, as there are a ton of audio glitches in stages 4 and 5. The commentary often drops out entirely which is a real distraction as it helps make sense of the mayhem. Also, I'm finding the exclusive use of the colour red for every enemy type quite a drag. My eyes are really not great and some colour variety would help with distinguishing one type - and behaviour - from another as they swarm you en masse. On a more positive note, I love how you can access videos of great runs from the hi-score leaderboard for tips on how to improve your score and find secrets.